


All Rolled Up in You

by Lauren_StDavid



Series: Beechwood Shorts [4]
Category: The Monkees, The Monkees (TV)
Genre: Bathroom Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Mild Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:53:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21524002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lauren_StDavid/pseuds/Lauren_StDavid
Relationships: Mike Nesmith/Peter Tork
Series: Beechwood Shorts [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1542475
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	All Rolled Up in You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [70mtt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/70mtt/gifts).



_In-between days? The last days of summer? Last_ rays _of summer?_ Hunting for the stray rackets and balls that always hid among the folds to fall on his feet when he shook the towels, Peter tried to frame the way that the beach’s vibe changed with the seasons as a title for an article in _The Carletonian_. Not that he’d written many, for his college newspaper. Well, started them, but not finished. That should’ve told him something.

The first title seemed a more accurate description, maybe, because while the fat swell and thick noise of beachgoers thinned once August ended, it wasn’t yet as sparse and wind-whipped as it would become, the more the year advanced. Words not conveying it, Peter tapped it out in rhythm against his knee, slowing the number of visitors and their amount of time on the beach from an August _allegro_ to a September _andante_ , a November _adagio_ and a December _lento_.

So, September, especially nearing the end of it as they were now, was a mid-point, an in-between and—

“What, Big Pete?” Micky stopped his shoving of towels and sandwich wrappers and chip packets into a bag—the same bag—to look at him.

Him picking up on Peter’s vibes surprised Peter, although it shouldn’t have: Micky was more sensitive and perceptive than they gave him credit for—or than he let on. Peter had rumbled that months back. “Nothing.” He went to twist, to look for Mike, even though Mike hadn’t joined them. _Habit._ “I’m just not such a fan of the autumn equinox.”

“As…you are of the spring equinox? Or getting kinda _near_ the spring equinox?” Micky’s question came as a sly reminder of the evening they’d spent supposedly celebrating Imbolc, a year and a half ago, and the memory had Peter half-grinning and skimming the Frisbee at Micky’s ankles, making him jump and quick-step in the cool sand to avoid it.

“Just not looking forward to the end of summer,” Peter admitted. “The thought of the season changing. Not this year.” He wanted to feel summer wasn’t ceasing, because this summer had been the start of himandMichael.

“What? It’s not gone already, seeing as we already had Labor Day? And here’s me making fun of people still wearing white.” Micky tutted at himself. “And talking of, you liked the Labor Day party the Willises threw at their club.”

“We all did—we played and got paid!” Peter, unable to find his bag, if he’d had one, gave up looking for it and rolled everything that was left into his towel instead. He laughed, remembering how Toby had piggybacked onto the party—hi-jacked it, really—by combining it with a college reunion she’d suddenly decided to hold at the same time, a get-together she’d then had to do the bare minimum of organization for. Her father’s secretary had even printed and mailed the invitations for her. With half the guests being their age, it was no wonder Toby had lobbied for them to provide the music. It still staggered Peter that it had gone surprisingly well.

“Come on!” Micky urged, stopping and waiting for Peter to catch up on the walk back to the pad.

“No point rushing—I doubt Davy will have dinner ready yet. Probably not even started cooking.” Peter was trudging. As soon as he was back, it would mean the end of the day. September was very different to July and August, with their long, slow afternoons in the sun and sea that still gave time for longer, slower late-afternoon sex in bed with Michael _and_ a long sunset-and-dusk evening afterward. Nothing like that now.

As Peter had predicted, no signs or smells of cooking came from the pad. Davy was there though, and even in the kitchen, slouching against the sink. As was Michael, the two standing close and talking. Something about the ways their bodies were angled, leaning into the other, caught Peter’s attention, through the glass of the kitchen window. He and Micky, wanting to rinse off at the garden shower, must have been walking around the side of the pad fairly quietly, not to have drawn the duo’s attention. Or maybe Mike and Davy were too deep in conversation to hear.

“Those two.” Micky crouched low, not to be visible above the bottom of the window as he turned on the outdoor shower and lifted the nozzle free. “Thick as thieves lately.” Leaping upright with a, “ _Hiyy-yah!_ ”, his face contorted demonically, he directed a blast of water at the window, startling the pair indoors.

A Texan-smoked, “ _Fuck’s sake, Mick!_ ” reached them.

“What? You’re always nagging me to do more chores, and here I am cleaning the window and you’re mad at me?” Micky shouted in response. No one did ‘misunderstood and aggrieved’ better than him.

“ _Fine, but don’t waste all the water—you need all you can get to clean those stinking pits of yours,_ ” came in a Manchester accent.

“Thick as thieves.” Micky pulled a face as he replaced the shower head on its hook and stuck a sandy foot under its spray. “That’s one weird expression, huh?”

“Especially when we’ve known more thin ones than thick ones,” Peter agreed, wondering whether to wash his hair.

“Yeah, you’d think you hadda be thin, to fit through ventilation ducts and water pipes and stuff.” Micky changed feet, hopping on the clean one to de-sand the other. “Like, you know how there’s a minimum height requirement for amusement park rides—do you think gangs of thieves have maximum girth criteria?”

Peter was glad for Micky’s prattling. It stopped him thinking ‘summer was one thing, fall might be another’ type thoughts. They dried off at the sundeck and, inside, Peter made straight for Mike. “How was it?”

“Howdy back atcha, y’all.” Mike mimed tipping his hat, his extra-politeness pointing up Peter’s lack of manners. “Was what?”

“The counselling.” Mike hadn’t wanted Peter to go to the last couple, including today’s, moved to a Thursday, for some reason.

“Oh yeah, you cured yet?” Davy threw in, en route to the couch with his favorite mug and a new magazine.

“Nope, still too damn tall, dark, and handsome for my own damn good,” Mike deadpanned.

Peter sniffed Mike, discreetly he hoped. Mike smelled of the same cologne he had a few days back. Not his usual leathery, peppery and spicy cedarwood and musk, but something with a clean, soapy scent over a woody base.

“ _Peter?_ ” queried Micky, throwing up his hands.

Not discreetly enough then.

“Shotgun?” Mike looked puzzled for a second before his forehead smoothed out. “Oh yeah. You commented on that cologne a couple days ago, when the—”

“Foxy sales chick?” Micky made an exaggerated figure-of-eight shape with both hands.

“Mick, I told you not to call the cosmetics and toiletries assistants that!” Davy scolded. “They’re actually known as dolly birds in white coats.”

“They spritz you, they dig you, man! Everyone knows that,” Micky enthused. “And it means they want _you_ to spritz ’em back, if you get my mean—” He caught himself, looking from Mike to Peter. “Oh, sorry.”

“You really need to get out more,” Mike told him. “When I got a spritz, yeah, Pete. So I went back for a free sample.”

“She gave you a freebie? Means she _really_ digs you. Uh, we’re still talking cologne, right? Oh, sorry again. Sorry, Peter.” Micky mimed removing a foot from his mouth.

“Just for that, you’re helping me with dinner,” Mike scolded Micky. “I need help chopping the vegetables, make it quicker.”

“ _You’re_ cooking dinner?” Micky did a comic double-take at the onions and garlic Mike was tipping from a bag onto the counter. “Not Davy? Aww, and I was looking forward to that finest of examples of culinary arts from the United Kingdom: a Spam fritter with a fried egg on top.”

“You _are_ a Spam fritter with a fried egg on top, mate,” Davy told him.

“But isn’t it your turn?” Peter asked.

“Nah, man. We traded.” Davy saluted them with his mug of tea before returning his attention to his magazine. An emery board appeared as if by magic in one hand for him to attend to the nails of the other.

“Oh. Okay.” Peter turned back to Mike, now busy handing Micky carrots and zucchini. “I stand by my assessment of a couple days ago—you do smell nice.” He stuck his nose into the crook of Mike’s neck in appreciation, making Mike wriggle and squirm.

“Thanks. And help yourself, there.”

“Ahgggh! Don’t make me cover my eyes when I’m using a sharp knife,” Micky begged.

“To the cologne, nutjob. And I want these sliced into small strips, with no sassin’ on that.” Mike, kitchen windowsill radio tuned to his satisfaction, took up a sharper knife and started on the garlic.

With a muttered, “Small strips, hold the sass,” Micky got to work.

Peter poked at the bell peppers, one in each color, and the cherry tomatoes. “Whatcha cooking?”

“Pasta all’Ortolana.” Mike stumbled on the word.

“Greengrocer.” Micky laughed. “That’s what _ortolana_ means. Really.”

“Looks like you raided one too.” Peter pointed to the variety of produce.

Mike acknowledged the hit. “You cook different vegetables and mix ’em together with the noodles. The pasta, I mean. Thought you might like it.”

“What pasta?” Micky demanded.

“You promise to eat all your veggies, you can choose.” Mike flicked his ear. “Bow ties or twists, if you don’t want something more grown-up, like linguini.”

It was always difficult to get one through-line of conversation, between them, with their different energies colliding and bouncing. “Well, that’s very thoughtful of you, Michael.” Peter stroked down his back where he worked. He wondered where Mike had gotten the recipe. “It seems complicated.”

“Not so much. All the work’s in the chopping, for which I got me a kitchen boy.” Mike pulled a triumphant face at Micky.

It still seemed a lot of work, a lot of effort to Peter. Mike had gone to the famers’ market, perhaps asked Enzo there for meal suggestions that showcased fresh produce, or maybe called up Pop for an Italian recipe that could work without meat in it. It wasn’t any sort of special day, an anniversary or celebration, was it? Did they have guests? “That seems a lot,” he hinted, washing the leek and celery to help. “Oh, is… No, can’t be.” While they owed Toby and her new weekend roommate a meal, today was Thursday, not Friday.

“Can be. And is.” Mike started on the onions. “Seems Belle got tomorrow off, so she’s coming a day early.”

“Oh.” Peter liked the former colleague of Toby’s, another Journalism graduate with whom Toby had reconnected at her reunion and invited to stay for weekends at the beach, Belle needing the respite from her new job and Toby needed someone to arrive with a trunk full of groceries and cook delicious food in large enough quantities to freeze for the week. Her actual roommate, Amanda, was away more than she was in LA these days, working at various other magazines and titles the parent publishing enterprise held, and Toby liked company.

“Belle?” Micky moved from carrots to zucchini. “She’s a gas, right, Davy?”

“Yep. The gassiest.” Davy hardly looked up from the quiz he was filling in.

“In fact, she’s natural gas, oil, _and_ geothermal energy,” Peter said, completing the joke. Belle had started working in the Press and Publications Department for one of the biggest companies in that field, although she wasn’t liking it very much.

“I kinda envy her being in Bakersfield,” Mike admitted. He liked the Bakersfield Sound, that west coast country music sound peculiar to the town, and Belle had become curious about it after Peter had illustrated it for her. She’d gotten into _their_ music, after hearing them play at the party, and was an enthusiastic supporter, working to help promote them.

“She was going to see Bud Lewis at the Old Jug bar this week. I bet it was a good show,” Peter agreed. “It’s great she’s invited us to crash at her place there is there’s ever any gig we want to go see.”

“Oh, so that’s why the Italian food? _Belle-isima!_ ” Micky kissed his fingers. “Hey, we might finally find out what Belle’s short for. Davy, you still betting on Belle-inda?”

“Nope. I now think it’s a nickname, ’cause her surname’s Tower. Belle Tower. You know, those church things? Like in _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_.”

Peter watched Micky working that out, his forehead creasing as he tried to remember Belle’s actual surname. It wasn’t Tower.

“You know, how certain surnames always have the same nickname?” Davy, warming to his theme, had reached the buffing stage on his nails. “Like you get called Chalky, if your last name’s White? Dusty, if it’s Miller?”

“Huh?”

“Jack, if Frost?” Davy ignored Micky. “Dickie Bird? Nosey Parker? So…Belle Tower.”

“Wait for it,” Peter advised Micky, in the silence that followed. He didn’t think Davy had quite finished. The blackcurrant gleam to his chestnut eyes…

“And weird coincidence, right?”

“What is?” Micky, so addressed, answered, feeding Davy his line.

“That Bell’s what your nickname would’ve been, if your surname had been End!”

“Oooh.” Mike winced for Micky. “And wow, man, some set-up, huh? That musta taken some doing.”

Davy shrugged. “All in a day’s work.”

“A Davy’s work, even.” Peter couldn’t resist it.

“Bell-a, let me be your fell-a,” Micky crooned, ignoring Davy and now sitting at the top of the spiral stairs, strumming Peter’s Sunburst Epiphone acoustic guitar.

“I see he’s slithered off.” Mike gave a sour look at the cooking chores Micky’d skipped out on.

“I’m amazed you got even that much work out of him.” Peter paused, thinking how best to ask if the unusually elaborate weekday meal was anything to do with Belle, but before he could ask Mike, the phone rang and Mike downed tools to answer it so fast he left his knife practically spinning in his wake. Peter took over from him, dicing tomatoes and trying not to notice how Mike stretched the phone to the end of its cord and gave one-syllable answers, facing away from the room.

“Was that our guests?” he asked when Mike re-joined him. He thought the voice on the other end had been female.

“No. Someone else, about a thing I’m trying to arrange. Hey, no nibbling!” He pretended to smack Peter’s hand, where he helped himself to a sliver of red bell pepper.

“Don’t even,” Peter called up at Micky, who’d opened his mouth to crack on that.

“Don’t ruin your appetite—I’m cooking now,” Mike explained, filling a pan with water and lighting the gas under it. “Micky, choose the pasta and you can snack on a breadstick I got.”

“Still don’t even,” Peter called behind him, where Micky had dropped from above at the mention of a snack.

“Because Peter and I are eating straightway, but you and Davy gotta wait for the chicks to arrive so you can eat with them, see?” Mike continued, measuring olive oil into another pan.

“We are?” Peter couldn’t help but be puzzled. “It’s not marked on the calendar. Or the schedule.”

“Well, it’s good to be spontaneous, sometimes, right?” Mike’s voice sounded a little defensive and he concentrated on throwing the garlic into the pan.

“How spontaneous?” Micky demanded.

“Peter and I are going to a show in West Hollywood, if ya gotta know.” Mike nodded his okay at the packet of fusilli Micky held up.

“We are?” Peter repeated.

Mike nodded. “Off Melrose.”

“Really?” LA-born-and-bred Micky raised his eyebrows at the location. “Not at the Old Palace, near Broadway? Known as the Old Queens, as it puts on entertainment by and for old qu—”

“No.” Mike flicked a dishcloth at him. “A small arts theater near Beverley. Now hush. I gotta focus up here…”

The recipe involved a lot of adding the different vegetables to the pan in a specific order, along with water, and then the cooked pasta. Peter, charged with finding the fresh basil Mike had gotten and tearing off leaves for garnish, was touched to find the recipe in the bottom of the bag, written out in Mike’s scrawl, seemingly copied down from verbal instructions. He was truthful in telling Mike how delicious the meal was, making Mike blush.

They’d were heading out when the neighbors arrived. “Hello there!” Peter gave a hug to Belle, one she returned in full, and patted the stiff crown and flipped-up ends of her shoulder-length brown hair. “It’s not relaxed yet?”

“Much too early. Still Aretha height. Should be down to a Jackie by tomorrow, then day after that pancake flat, with no space for a matching ribbon.” She stroked along the scarf that was tied in a bandeau around her head just below her mini-bouffant, flicking the ends where they hung below one ear.

Peter had found the slide from office Belle into leisure-time Belle interesting to observe last weekend. Now, she’d changed from a suit into pedal pushers and a long-sleeved tee and taken off her false eyelashes, probably when she’d stopped somewhere on the drive here, but her huge brown eyes still bore traces of kohl, just as her hair was still sophisticated-looking. Peter checked her footwear: flat shoes, the gateway from her corporate high heels to tomorrow’s tennis shoes, then bare feet. “Did you—” he asked at the same time as she held up a bag and said, “I got you—” and they both laughed.

“Couldya catch up later?” Mike was pushing Peter to the door. “We got theater plans.”

“Oh, sorry! Enjoy the play!” Belle called in their wake.

“What _is_ the play?” Peter finally thought to inquire, finding Micky’s abandoned bottle of soda on the table outside the front door and shaking it to see how much remained.

Mike grinned, that just on the wrong side of dirty smirk Peter loved. “Not a play. A movie. At the Vista Cinema.”

“The Vista? Isn’t that where they show all the homo porno? What _is_ this movie?” Peter finished the soda.

“It’s called _Blow Job_.”

Peter really, really wished he wasn’t halfway through drinking carbonated soda when he heard that—he hated spraying effervescent drink out of his nose. He cleaned off his spluttered-on shirt best he could.

“Pete, it’s an art movie! A ‘clandestine showing’ whatever that means.” Mike shot Peter that sexy wink of his, the sort that made Peter kiss him as soon as they were in the relative privacy of the car.

“Art movie,” Peter repeated, chuckling as they set off.

It…really was, as they found out once they were watching, Mike more vociferously, getting shushes from Andy Warhol fans and aficionadas of art house cinema in general. They stayed on for the sequel, the promisingly named _Blow Job_ _#2_ , _Eating Too Fast_ , wondering if things would…improve. They didn’t.

There was no sign of their neighbors when they got back. The pad was quiet—seemed they’d all gone out, or the other two could be in bed, of course. Peter found the record Belle had gotten for him and Mike, at the gig she’d been to in the week, and went upstairs to the bedroom in case he wanted to play it right away, without waking a possibly sleeping Micky and Davy.

She’d paper-clipped a note to it, reminding him he’d promised her her first guitar lesson. True. He’d promised it when they’d met, at the Labor Day party, but there hadn’t been time either that or last weekend, Belle’s first proper weekend in Beechwood. He’d listened to both sides of the single when he realized Mike still wasn’t upstairs yet.

“Hey,” Peter called softly over the railing of the staircase to Mike, seated at the meeting table. Mike didn’t hear, being absorbed in what he was doing. What was he doing? Peter squinted. Budgeting? Seemed to be his finances notebook, along with small slips of paper and bigger sheets, too. “Michael?”

Mike jumped.

“Sorry… Coming to bed? I’ll make it up to you, for the misleading movie title…and any other disappointments, like poor finances? What were you—”

“You got nothing to make up for.” Mike stood and tidied his work away. “And nothing doing here. I was just working some stuff out.”

“Hmm. Is this the bit where I promise you a different type of work-out, and you groan at the awful pun but take me up on it anyway?”

“Darlin’.” Mike took the stairs three at a time. “I’ll take you up on anything, anywhere, any time. You know that.”

And he did, and that discordant note Peter had felt and tried to hear, tried to pin down, was now _diminuendo_.

He tried to shake off the _crescendo_ the next morning when an engine revving woke him, for him to find Mike gone, at what must have been an early hour and a note left in his place, informing Peter that Mike had picked up some extra work and that a couple slices bread and an orange had been reserved—hidden behind the tins in the cupboard— for Peter’s breakfast, when he came back from surfing. Because Peter shouldn’t neglect his surfing.

So Peter didn’t, trying to prolong the still-a-summer-morning vibe as far as he could, by staying out as long as he could, but after, the doubts swarmed like flies. Back at the pad, he ate a slice of bread and butter, not wanting to wait for it to toast, so he could get to work quicker.

At the back of the No-Room communal closet was a big piece of hardboard, painted the same color as the wall and, when pulled away from the wall and propped up, created a small space behind it, unnoticeable to the casual No-Room user, but big enough for Peter to sit and work at the Lab Book he’d started keeping there.

It wasn’t a real laboratory notebook, of course. It wasn’t a hardbacked journal with sewn-in numbered pages that had to be dated, signed and countersigned, all to prevent tampering, or falsification. He was more of a social scientist, after all, and this was basically one step up from the old ledger he and his brother had used as kids to record OBSERVATIONS and CONCLUSIONS. He smiled at the memory. While some of their conclusions had been…off-beam, their research had led to them knowing they had another brother on the way before they were told, for one thing.

He hadn’t really known the best way to go about this, now, so had ruled a few columns and labelled them. The first heading, _Phenomena_ , he’d scribbled out, realizing phenomena were just observable facts or occurrences, whereas he was recording _Anomalies_ , a deviation from what was regarded as normal. Column two was headed _Working Hypotheses_ , as Peter considered them provisional, a way to advance the investigation and which could, or should, lead to the discovery of other new, relevant facts.

 _Mike went to the counselling appointment alone_ , he’d written when it first happened, and now repeated, adding yesterday’s date to record that this had occurred again. Now his working hypothesis was _he’s talking about me / our relationship_. He’d know Peter, accompanying him, would be able to tell from his face afterward. That wasn’t so bad. Mike needed time and space to process things. Peter stopped himself dwelling on _what things_ and that their relationship wasn’t exactly…the legal type by moving on.

 _Mike smelled of a different cologne or aftershave._ He hadn’t listed a hypothesis for that, either, not wanting to think about the most cliched reason a partner would come home smelling of a different fragrance. Now, he recorded a second occurrence of this and what Mike had said yesterday, that he merely liked the smell and had acquired a small sample of the cologne. He had; Peter had seen it.

 _Mike swapping with Davy / doing Davy’s cleaning chores._ He had a hypothesis: _Davy has dirt on him. No pun intended._ Peter recorded the instance from yesterday, Mike cooking when it was Davy’s turn and wrote in a new hypothesis: _Mike’s bored with existing meals / recipes_. Peter’s evidence for that was part of the next anomaly he noted.

 _Mike cooked a special weekday meal._ Okay, they did have guests, but Peter felt it was linked. Hypothesis: _Mike’s bored with the day-to-day routine._

The next anomaly was more difficult to record. _Mike took me to see a film about giving blow jobs—or so he thought._ Hypothesis: _Mike wants better head._ Peter reread what he’d written and filled in the third column, _Conclusions_ , for each entry, with the same deduction.

_Mike wants a change. Something different._

So, where did that leave—

“Peter? Micky? Anyone?”

 _Davy._ Peter closed the book and stood it upright against the back wall, against which he replaced the sheet of hardboard. By the time he’d exited the closet, as unobtrusively as he could, Davy had gotten bored and left. Peter glimpsed him out on the sundeck. He wouldn’t be likely to think about getting a meal organized, not when it wasn’t his turn.

Peter walked quietly, not really wanting company, and jumped at the motorbike engine outside. Mike back? He opened the door to see not Mike’s motorbike and not Mike at all, but a blond guy, one Peter knew. “J?” He waved to the lead singer of the Foreign Agents. “Hi?”

“Hi, Pete.” J climbed off his bike, checked his hair, and took something from the saddlebag. “Mike back?”

“Back…” How did J know anything about Mike’s whereabouts? “No. Why?”

“I’m dropping this off for him.” J tapped the medium-sized, stiff-looking envelope he held against his other hand.

Peter had no need to fake a confused expression. “We don’t have a letterbox,” he said. It was true. “And it won’t fit in the mail boot.” He patted the small table they used.

“I can’t leave it lying around.” J clutched the envelope tighter. “It’s from my sister. Chica’s crazy. She’d knife me.”

“Your _sister_?” Just when Peter thought things couldn’t get any odder, Mike roared up on his bike, looking from one to another of them as he got off and greeted them.

“Hi.” Peter fought the urge to pull Mike in by the back of his neck and kiss him hard, establish his position. And by the look in J’s eye, he knew that. “J brought this for you.” He slipped the envelope from their visitor’s fingers and handed it over, getting a feel of it as he did so. It seemed to contain papers, stiff papers, and a smaller enclosure with small, hard things inside.

“Thanks!” Mike slapped J on the back. “For playing errand boy, I mean.” He dodged J’s punch. “What? ’S true.”

J scowled, then laughed, shrugging as if it were. He was an okay guy, Peter had always thought, able to take a joke against himself.

“You coming in for something to eat? Your lunch break, right?” Mike continued, going inside.

Was it?

“If I’m not imposing.” J took a cigarette from his packet with his teeth, offering the pack to Peter, who shook his head.

“My turn to make lunch. I think,” he said, trying to read whatever currents were eddying, following the two men in.

Micky turned from the kitchen counter. “Peter, the dentist called, reminding us about Nyles’ appointment? Hi, J. What?” Micky said, at the look on Peter’s face. “Don’t blame me. You know he has to have assisted appointments and it’s your turn.”

“Oh, he gets medicated in advance?” J asked.

“Oh yeah,” Micky agreed. “A lot. He kinda needs assisted trips to the store and to the library as well, but especially the dentist. Better safe than sorry, after last time. You probably read about it.” He scooped a sandwich into a bag. “I got my lunch to go. See ya.”

“Bye. And hi.” Davy joined them, taking J’s cigarette from him to take a drag, then giving it back. He refused one. “Nah. I don’t smoke.” He paused, looking at the three of them, especially Peter. “I’ll join you for lunch, if Mike’s making it. I was hiding from Micky’s boloney and peach preserves specials. J, come outside and get some sun. You need it. You’re so pasty everyone must think you’re British and say stuff like ‘cheerio, guv’ner’ and ‘toodle-pip, old sport’ at you.”

“Well, guess I’ll get gone.” Peter looked at Mike.

“Watch Nyles around the drugs cabinet,” Mike said, keeping his tone light and easy, but not catching Peter’s eye as he spoke.

Another anomaly, Peter thought, heading for Nyles’, Davy playing chaperone. Bodyguard. He wondered what, if anything Davy knew about what, if anything, was going on. Oh, not anything J-related, he didn’t think. Peter tried to feel the rhythm of that. _A battuta_ , a return to normal tempo after a deviation, perhaps. _Niente_ , to nothing, a diminuendo that had faded completely away. Even if J wished it _come prima_ , like the earlier tempo.

But he was a cool guy, Peter still felt, thinking back to the guy’s tone and body language at their start of summer party, and how he’d been the couple of times they’d run into him since. J wasn’t…underhanded. And Mike wouldn’t lie or deceive Peter. Only, when Peter got back to the pad in the afternoon, Mike had gone again, and Peter didn’t like the vibes. He took a look around, as casually as he could, and spied the envelope from earlier lying next to the phone. Okay… He’d just—

He’d barely touched the corner of whatever the colored brochure was when the phone rang, making him jump.

“Peter?”

“Mike? Where are you?” he demanded, holding the receiver away from his ear at the crackling. “What? I thought you said—”

“Avalon. I did.”

Peter fell silent, not knowing what to say. The mystical island in the Arthurian legends? Mike had been working hard lately, following their LA Live appearance, and all the canvassing required to get the most votes of the month's acts, meaning they’d be asked back, even though Belle was helping with that, after seeing them play at the party and the Bismarck club. Mike had been hustling for work, with the Duke Box being closed for a re-fit. They’d all tried to do their bit, but the strain had evidently fallen on Mike and—

“Avalon, on Catalina Island.”

Ah. That made more sense. Except— “Wait. What?”

“Can you come? Be with me?”

Peter strained to hear and interpret. This plea…sounded like Mike needed rescuing. Like Ritz, occasional member of the Sycamore Jazz Ensemble and hopeless gambler who’d call up the Judge or Birdy from sleazy bars, where he’d been unable to resist the lure of the clandestine poker games in the back rooms, and from where they’d go drag him out, never mind if he started pleading with them to let him play one hand; Lady Luck was returning to him; just one hand…

By the time Peter had processed that Mike had told him a street name and number, the line was dead. But what did Mike need saving from? Or…who?

“Davy!” Peter yelled.

“And Micky,” Micky replied, coming in from the sundeck with Davy.

Peter stared hard at them. “Is there any point me asking you what’s going on?” If Davy knew, was privy to Mike’s secrets, he’d be close-mouthed. “Never mind. look, I have to get to Catalina. And don’t you dare suggest I’d better start swimming.”

“Ferry from Long Beach.” Davy swiped up the Monkeemobile keys. “We’ll drive you.”

Mike’s motorbike was still outside. He must have taken the Jeep that Amanda let them borrow when she was away—unless he’d gotten a lift. No; it was there, at the ferry terminal, and the reason Micky was there, to drive it back.

“Hey, remember me telling you once you thought loud?” Micky rubbed his temples, squinting at Peter. “Well, you’re deafening me, man!”

Davy watched Micky make his way to the Jeep. “Ignore him,” he said. “Like they ignored me when I said how I thought this’d go. But promise me one thing. Don’t Peter out about this, yeah?”

Peter didn’t promise, but tried to do as Davy had asked, on the ferry ride to Avalon and when docking at one end of the harbour. He studied the map at the terminal and set off around the bay, taking the pedestrian walkway along the top of the beach that, with its pier, was just like Santa Monica, or Venice.

The streets leading up from the bay were more Mediterranean-looking, and hilly, and the address he had was on a corner. The building stood on stilts and had a steep set of stairs leading up to its grounds. At the top, Peter saw someone hurry from the terrace and cut through the small garden to vanish around the side of the…small hotel, he understood, looking up at the three floors. Or perhaps the structure was three separate apartments, with this ground floor one and its garden the nicest. He turned to take in the view of the bay, buying time. Because, while he didn’t know the guy who’d left, he did know the man standing on the terrace in front of the windows. _Michael._

“Peter?”

Turning at his name, Peter found Mike sitting at the terrace table, which was set for dinner and bore covered dishes of food.

“I wanted to talk. Away from the pad.” Mike pushed out a chair for him, but Peter didn’t sit. “I got things to—well, a confession, I guess.”

He was dressed in the clothes Peter liked him in. “It’s to do with your therapy, isn’t it.” Peter had been wondering what Mike talked about, how the counsellor responded…and how it would affect their relationship.

“Yeah.” Mike looked a little surprised. “It gets you to think a lot about your past, present, and future. About what you want. What’s holding you back from getting it. Patterns of behaviour. Kinda making you change how you think and act in situations.”

Like us, Peter tried not to think. _We’re a ‘situation’._

“I was jealous of Belle. I could see she liked you.”

“ _What?_ ”

“But I didn’t go with my instinctive reaction.”

Now Peter sat. “Getting her hung up on you instead.”

Mike’s duck of the head told of his shame. “But I tried to keep you away from her. Asked Davy to hang out with her. I know, stupid. I just don’t quite trust. Not you,” he was quick to say. “Things. I don’t…believe. Believe that I’m so lucky I got you. Peter? Where—”

It was all too much. He hadn’t known what he was walking into it and hadn’t expected this. “Bathroom!” Peter managed as he bolted, his chair scraping on the terrace flooring. He ran away from the garden, with its flowers and harbour view, into the safer indoors, finding the bathroom. Mike followed, opening the door Peter had closed, then knocking, hesitating, and finally coming in. Peter turned from wiping his eyes.

“You were honest, so I’ll be.” He took a breath. “I thought the therapist had told you to leave me. Leave the pad, even. That it was unhealthy. Or, if he was liberal, that you should press pause on the relationship.”

“So you were preparing for that.” Mike took the tissue and mopped Peter’s face. “Babe, don’t you know me? You think I’d let anyone tell me anything like that?”

“So all this…”

“Is because I don’t wanna take you for granted! Did you know people should work as hard _in_ a relationship as they do to get _in_ the relationship? I, well, don’t want you to get bored with things. With me.”

“Huh?” As if that could be possible. Peter thought he saw— So, this place…”

“I got a last-minute cancellation from the travel company J’s family run.”

“His sister!” Peter said.

“K’s the brains of the operation.” Mike nodded.

“Wait. _J’s_ the looks?”

Mike laughed and ran a finger down Peter’s nose. “I wanted just you and me for a change. We didn’t get a real break yet.” He pulled Peter to him, his hands tight around his lower back.

Peter buried his face in the crook of Mike’s neck, hoping Mike would ignore the dampness on his skin. Because he had tears in his eyes again. “And now I’ve ruined it.” He gestured at the bathroom they were in, when they had a whole apartment with a catered dinner, Peter belatedly realized, waiting.

“What? Of course you didn’t.”

“You arranged all this, before and now here, and I Petered out.”

“You’re wrong there, shotgun. You made it better.”

Mike pressed into him harder, and Peter raised his head. He was standing in front of a mirrored wall, and could see Mike’s reflection in it, from the mirror over the vanity. “How.”

Mike walked Peter a few steps and caged him between his body and the counter. He slid a hand up Peter’s back to his nape. “Because as soon as I saw this bathroom earlier, I wanted to fuck you in it. It’s like you knew.”

“Really?”

“Really. I pictured you in here, me jacking you until your knees gave out, then burying myself in your sweet ass while I bent you over that fancy sink.”

“Oh. And I don’t get a say in this?” Peter’s smile had Mike tracing his thumb over his bottom lip. “I’m just supposed to drop my pants so you can have your way with me?”

“Peter, no! Of course not!” Mike bent to whisper in his ear. “ _I’m_ gonna undress you.”

And he did, unbuttoning Peter’s shirt and skimming it from his shoulders, pausing to stroke the patch of hair at the vee of Peter’s throat before undoing Peter’s belt and pants and pulling them and his briefs down his legs and off. He smirked to see Peter’s cock filling. “Fuck, I want you,” he whispered.

“I’m not going anywhere.” Peter pulled Mike to him to kiss him, opening his mouth under his and sucking on his tongue.

Mike moaned. He caressed Peter’s bare ass and pulled his lips away. “You’d better not.” He turned Peter around. “I can’t wait. This might be a little rough.”

“It better be,” Peter imitated Mike, earning himself a slap on the ass. He stilled when Mike wrapped an arm around him, sliding a palm up to Peter’s throat. They’d played around like this, a little, but… Then Peter couldn’t think about that, not with Mike’s other hand pinching his nipple. He splayed his hands on the countertop and caught the reflection of him and Mike in the mirror, nudging the back of his head into Mike to make him look. Him naked, Mike still dressed behind him—it was mesmerizing.

“Yeah, you’re fucken gorgeous.” Mike nipped Peter’s neck and rubbed his clothed erection between Peter’s ass cheeks. He moved away to rummage in the tooth glass, his fingers emerging with a tube of K-Y.

“You did think about this!” Peter exclaimed, then shivered as the cool gel dribbled between his cheeks. He flexed.

“You doing okay?”

Peter nodded.

Mike eased two fingers into Peter. “And now?”

“No. You’d better stop.”

Mike met his eyes in the mirror. “Little tease.” Mike swatted his ass again and huffed out a laugh. “Just can’t keep my hands offa this.”

“Or your cock out of it.” Peter squirmed at a twist of Mike’s fingers. “You love fucking it.”

“Oh, that I do.”

He felt Mike slide a third finger into his hole, opening and stretching him, darting his dark gaze between what he was doing and Peter’s reaction to it, reflected in the mirror.

Peter groaned. “Fuck yes.” He closed his eyes, so didn’t track the flexing of Mike’s arm muscles, didn’t know he’d added another finger until he felt Mike scissoring them in him.

Mike flattened his palm on Peter’s lower back. “Good?”

“Very.” Peter writhed and pushed against Mike.

“Like me playing with you?” Mike breathed in his ear, a second before he curled a finger and massaged Peter’s prostate. When Peter whimpered, he did it again, and this time, Peter shuddered. Mike grinned. “Yeah, you’re getting ready for me. I’ll take your eager little ass soon. Fuck it good.”

He slipped a hand up to Peter’s face and pulled it back, angling it so Mike could kiss him. Jesus, that was overwhelming, Mike’s fingers in him, his lips biting Peter’s, and his eyes watching his every reaction. Peter’s cock was so full, it hurt. He moaned into Mike’s kiss and ground his ass on Mike’s fingers, seeking relief.

“You can touch yourself,” Mike said. “I want to see.”

And he did, licking his swollen lower lip as his dark gaze watched Peter brace himself on one hand and stroke his dick. Peter played it up a little, but he needed to work himself some. It took a bit of the edge off and heightened it, at the same time.

“So fucken sexy.” Mike nipped Peter’s earlobe, his teeth pressing harder to make it into a bite. “What do you want next? Your choice.”

“You. In. Me.” He wasn’t going to be able to hold out for much longer, and he doubted Mike could either. “Oh, and you naked. Obviously.” The thought of Mike’s chest fur rubbing against Peter’s back had precum releasing from his dick.

Mike’s chuckle was filthy in the shiny, pristine bathroom. He withdrew from Peter long enough to strip and stroke lube onto his cock. He grasped Peter’s hips and ordered, “Watch.”

So Peter did, catching Mike’s gaze in their reflection. He saw Mike loop an arm around him and grab his ass cheek with the other hand. His imagination supplied what he couldn’t see perfectly: Mike spreading him open, then lining up his cock with Peter’s hole. He saw and felt Mike biting where Peter’s neck met his shoulder. Saw and felt Mike push deep into his body. Felt the stretch and burn that never failed to make him groan and turn him on, just as his tightness did Mike, and loved how Mike paused for them both to adjust.

Mike’s hair tickled where his face still lay, tucked into Peter’s neck, his tongue now soothing over the bite. He didn’t usually leave his mark where it would be visible, but now he rocked his hips and bit down onto Peter’s shoulder.

It made Peter tense, then shudder, then buck against Mike. He didn’t catch what Mike hissed in response, but Mike pushed in, then pulled almost all the way out before slamming back in again, creating a hard, demanding rhythm, making Peter grip the counter just as hard to stay in place.

“Feel it?” Mike gasped, striking to hit that spot deep inside Peter, again and again, with each thrust. Peter could only nod. “Feel good? Tell me.” Mike punctuated the last with an almost brutal snap of his hips.

“ _So_ good,” Peter stammered. He felt Mike’s climax welling up in him, demanding release, from the increased pressure of Mike’s fingers digging into his sides and the raw speed and power of his strokes.

“Peter…” Mike breathed.

“Uh-huh.” Understanding the question, Peter closed his eyes. “Need to come.” He trembled. “Now.”

“Stroke yourself. Want to see you come apart.” Mike fixed his gaze on Peter’s via their reflection. “Together.”

Peter tried to answer, but the words were gone and all he could manage was a nod. The heat in his spine spread through his body and each stroke of Mike’s pushed him closer to climax, just as the fire and dark in Mike’s eyes tore everything away. Moaning, Peter worked his cock in time with Mike’s thrusts, he and Mike moving as one body—and maybe one soul—burning up together in the explosion they made between them. Peter jerked forward and his cum splattered the mirror. He sagged against Mike.

“Peter!” Mike cried, shuddering and powering into Peter. It only took a couple more thrusts before he came, hard, and was crushing Peter against the sink, his head in Peter’s nape, his hard panting making his breath heat the back of Peter’s neck. It took him a minute after to move. “Jesus, Peter!”

“God, Michael!” Peter returned, his breathing still a little raspy too.

“You wrung me out, shotgun. My legs won’t…” Mike slipped free and to the floor. Between them, they grabbed enough towels and bathrobes to just about cushion and cover them. Instead of one of them cuddling the other, they lay on their sides, facing the other, heads propped on their hands. Mike splayed hand on Peter’s hip and Peter cradled Mike’s face while they simply looked at each other. Peter closed the gap between them to mouth, “ _I love you,_ ” against Mike’s lips, for Mike to whisper, “ _Love you too,_ ” and rub his nose against Peter’s, making him giggle.

“So.” Peter stretched and sat, wriggling into a robe. Despite his shaky arms, he helped Mike up too and passed him his own bathrobe. “What have you got planned for the terrace?”

Mike laughed. What he whispered in Peter’s ear had Peter’s eyes popping open.

“We should head there now. Because the dinner’s getting cold!” Peter added, loudly, refuting any smirk Mike loosed.

“It arrived cold. I ordered vichyssoise and a pasta salad. What? I knew we’d wanna fuck rather than eat.”

“Hmm.” Peter settled into Mike’s side. “What is there to do here, on the island?”

“Oh, golf.”

“Golf? _Golf?_ ” Peter was scandalized. “You know how I feel about golf.”

“Yeah, yeah. That it ruins perfectly good grass. Well, they got boat trips. Glass-bottomed observation craft.”

“Oh, that’ll be great for you.” Peter mimed seasickness.

“And there’s the beach.”

“That’s a change,” they said together.

“There’s snorkelling and diving. You like that, huh?” Mike smiled and kissed Peter’s forehead. “I got a good package.”

“It’s not nice to boast. Well, it’s not boasting, I guess. It’s accurate.” Peter wriggled his hand inside Mike’s gown to check it out. “Yep.”

“Peter…” Mike pulled Peter’s hand free. “Ya know, _we’re_ a good package.”

“We really are,” Peter agreed. He climbed into Mike’s lap. It was more comfortable than the floor.

“And talking of, next time, would you come to counselling with me? Come in with me, I mean? A joint session?”

Peter buried his face into the vee of Mike’s gown at this acknowledgement of the trust and growth Mike wanted in their relationship as it went forward. As _they_ went forward. Mike hugged him tightly. Peter nodded, making Mike giggle when Peter’s bangs tickled him. Peter raised his head. “And talking of, next time, I’ll arrange the surprise getaway, okay?”

“What, for my birthday?” Mike’s voice was thick when he spoke. “Or New Year?”

“Both,” Peter decided.

“Sure! Then me for your birthday and Valentine’s.”

“Mine’ll be best,” Peter announced.

“Wait, is that a challenge, there, shotgun? That you throwing down?” Mike scraped his beard scruff into Peter’s neck, to get him squirming. “’Cause, challenge accepted.” He pulled him in for a kiss and Peter met him halfway.

As things should be, he thought, already planning the December break…


End file.
